


Lost In Our Embrace

by seventhTense



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Bathhouse Shennanigans, Dares & Bets, Embarrassment and Blushes a'Plenty, Fluff, Goro Akechi and the Tsundere Internal Monologue, It's Unreasonably Soft My Guys, M/M, Snuggling n' Cuddling, Where's Morgana? We Just Don't Know, it's just fluff my dudes, touch-starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:40:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23329381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhTense/pseuds/seventhTense
Summary: Akira Kurusu is a bold, presumptuous, touchy bastard, and Goro Akechi cannot take it any longer. His inability to take it any longer only doubles when Akira, seeing Goro tired and exhausted, invites him to go to the Yongen-Jaya bathhouse together. And as for what Akira says when they get to the bathhouse, much less what he does......Goro is going to fuckingexplode.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 22
Kudos: 390
Collections: Marigolds Discord Recs





	Lost In Our Embrace

**Author's Note:**

> No warnings or anything here, just a whooooooole lotta fluff!
> 
> Enjoy!

Akira Kurusu was a bastard and an asshole and a son of a bitch for making Goro feel the way he was feeling. 

That’s really all there was to it. The man was just absolutely, intolerably infuriating in every imaginable way, and for whatever reason, he seemed to have decided to make it his goal to force Goro to react to his bullshit in the most humiliating possible ways, constantly.

It wasn’t enough that he had accumulated a tight-knit little group of friends without putting in an ounce of effort into making himself appealing to the masses, in just the scant few months since he arrived in Tokyo. It wasn’t enough that he had gotten stronger in Mementos faster than Goro had back when he first encountered the warped otherworld. It wasn’t god damned enough that he and his shitty little group of stupid friends had, oh, whoopsie-daisy, just so happened to decide to make every one of their targets since the gym teacher one of Shido’s cadre of lackeys, and thus made themselves Goro’s enemies without him so much as having a single say in the matter.

No, none of that was apparently injury or insult enough for the cocky, curly-haired piece of shit at the helm of the S.S. Phantom Thieves. On top of all of that, on top of the endless, waking nightmare of a migraine that Goro’s life had become in the past few months, Akira Kurusu just had to be so... so....

...so goddamn _handsy._

All the damn time too! Goro would journey out to that backwater cafe for some of their unreasonably good coffee, and when Kurusu went to pour him a refill, he would fucking _pat his hand,_ a gentle little _pat pat_ on the black leather of his gloves, give him a warm little smile, and murmur in that weirdly deep voice of his “Enjoy.”

Infuriating!!! And it only got worse the more they got to know each other- and Goro had to get to know the man, of course, he had no choice in the matter, it would be a dereliction of his duties as the Black Mask and an abysmal abandonment of his pride as a detective if he didn’t learn as much as he could about his new rivals, after all. But that didn’t mean that as they progressed farther in their budding friendship that Kurusu had the right to keep getting closer _physically_ too.

Pats on the hand over coffee refills evolved into pats on the back when Goro would leave for the evening. Teasing, congratulatory handshakes when Goro won a point in one of their casual debates turned into surprised, playful whacks on the arm when he’d say something cool or funny that the thief didn’t expect. Warm smiles turned his way whenever they saw each other turned into warm hugs, and as they started to get close enough to one another to hang out together outside of Goro’s visits to Leblanc, Kurusu only got bolder with how hands-on he’d be with Goro in _fucking **public**_ too, of all things!

If Kurusu’s goal was to turn Goro into a blushing maiden with the heartrate of an excitable and poorly-exercised shiba inu, he succeeded with flying colors. If his goal was to make Goro want to strangle the life out of his too-bold-to-possibly-comprehend little throat, he was getting some of the highest marks in recorded history. If his goal was to send Goro to an early grave with how intensely his entire body was buzzing and thrumming for hours and hours on end after every touch, every hold, every tender look, he sure as hell had that fucking covered too. Goro felt like he had been bodily tossed into some cliched shounen ai manga, cast as the absurdly blushy, idiotically reactive self-insert protag. His heart couldn’t seem to decide if he enjoyed the time he spent with Akira, if he hated it, if he longed for more time, if he longed for more intimacy, or if he was ardently looking forwards to the seemingly inevitable day where the Thieves would become so much of a problem that Goro would be called upon to put a bullet in his shitty, handsome little face.

Jesus. What a nightmare.

The worst of it though, the absolute worst day came at the beginning of summer, just as school was wrapping up. Goro had gone through a fantastically awful day, had missed every train he had tried to get, had to bike to school where he got lectured by some idiot teachers, had to bike from there to work where he got lectured by some idiot cops, forgot his bike at the station, and for whatever god-forsaken reason, his drained brain and mindless feet had led him onto the train bound for Yongen-Jaya when the day was done.

When he showed up at Leblanc, likely looking as if... well, as if he had a really shitty day, Kurusu took one look at him, sized him up, and promptly announced “We’re going to the bathhouse.”

“Wh... I’m sorry, **_what?_** ” Goro was barely able to keep the frustration and anger out of his voice, exhaustion and a day full of dealing with bullshit from every corner having worn down his mask to bare millimeters.

“You look like shit,” Kurusu said bluntly, and Goro felt the last bits of his mask start to crack and splinter off. “And you look like you feel like shit too. You’re not going home til we fix that.”

“...look, Kurusu-” Goro started to seethe, so done with this day that he was honestly all too happy to lash out at this presumptuous asshole, and damn the consequences, but then Kurusu’s arm was wrapped around his, his hand was prying Goro’s attache case out of his grip and tossing it gently into a nearby booth, and if Goro didn’t have the strength to be polite, he sure as fuck didn’t have the strength to resist the commanding, caring warmth of Kurusu’s touch.

It was hell, and it made Goro want to kick something, but it was warm and soft and pleasant at the same time. Goro hated it. Hated him. Hate.

He deflated and, instinctively leaning into Akira’s warmth, let himself be led about.

Once Leblanc was safely locked up behind them, his arm still around Goro, Kurusu led the way across the street, past the small laundromat and into the bathhouse beyond. Goro hadn’t set foot in the back-alley bathouse before for obvious reasons, but Kurusu spoke to the old woman behind the counter as if he had been here dozens of times. Though, that did make sense, the few molecules of the Detective part of Goro’s brain that was still functioning did remember that Leblanc didn’t have any sort of shower installed in its single bathroom, so this place was probably the only option Kurusu even had.

Goro’s ever fluctuating opinion of Sojiro Sakura dipped a few points at that realization, as it did most of the time when Goro came to understand some new, depressing fact about Kurusu’s living situations here.

Still, the dark-haired bastard didn’t seem put out by having to use this kind of place at all- if anything, he seemed pretty pumped-up. He ordered a set of soap and shampoo for the both of them, and led Goro to the locker rooms. Thankfully, Kurusu’s brain wasn’t decayed enough to try and keep an arm around Goro while they were changing into their towels, and with a strangely bittersweet sense of relief sweeping through him at the loss of contact, Goro stripped out of his sweat-stained suit, and into the surprisingly soft towel provided to him.

He turned to Akira once he was changed, and while he was exhausted, he wasn’t too exhausted to miss the way the thief’s eyes darted guiltily away from Goro’s frame as he turned around. _Pervert._

“This way,” he murmured, at least managing to sound appropriately embarrassed, and led the way out of the locker rooms and into the main part of the bathhouse. It was nicer than Goro expected it to be, but it wasn’t _that_ nice. Not terrible, but not impressive. 

Akira gestured to Goro to follow him to the shower stalls, which was a very good idea, because Goro felt like if he dipped his body into the communal bath right now, the whole thing would turn a sickly beige from the sweat and stress caked into his pores. Goro bowed his head in thanks, not really meaning it, and slipped inside one of the stalls, hearing Kurusu head into the one next to his a moment later.

An idea popped into Goro’s head, then, as he put his soap and shampoo on the little shelf in the shower and got himself settled. Most of the time, Goro had felt too nervous to confront Akira over how absurdly frequently he touched Goro- absurd, of course, for a practiced killer to feel all blushy and embarrassed at the thought of talking about that sort of thing, but absurd or not, it was how Goro felt, humiliatingly enough. 

Now, though, there was some enforced distance between the two of them. With the wall of the shower partition separating them, there was no chance that Kurusu would interrupt Goro with a soothing touch on the back of his hand, or a playful, teasing glimmer in his eyes, there was nothing he could do to derail Goro from settling this once and for all, and tearing Akira down from the Throne of Infinite Confidence and Presumptuousness he had settled into so happily.

It was perfect. Now he just had to arrange his thoughts into an appropriately devastating order, and then-

The shower tap in Akira’s stall turned on, and holding back a surprised little yelp at the noise shocking him from his thoughts, Goro quickly reached for a bucket of warm water he had been filling, and dumped it over his head... then filled it and dumped it again as he heard Akira start to move around, and his mind became filled with imagined imagery of what Akira might look like in his stall, wet and glistening with water and suds cascading down his muscles- was he muscled? It was so hard to tell with the clothes he wore and yep okay that’s a third bucket of water, this was getting mortifying.

Okay, so the situation was _almost_ perfect. Almost.

Goro only partially succeeded in getting his mind to shut up, though, and after just a couple minutes of calmly washing himself, his mind constantly cycling back to flashes of Akira’s imagined hot bod and furious embarrassment over said imaginings and back again and back again, he couldn’t take the silence between them and what it was doing to his mind any longer. He spoke up, regretting it as soon as the impulsive blurting left his lips, hating Akira all the more for flustering him this much without even being visible, to the point where he couldn’t even have a few moments to compose his thoughts. Asshole.

“So, Kurusu,” he started, pausing for a second to clear his throat in a desperate attempt to chase away the shakiness in his voice.

“Hmm?” Akira hummed, invitingly.

Goro took a deep breath, but not so deep that he had time to overthink and obsess over his words and more, not wanting to let his stupidly hair-trigger nerves make him back out of this. “You’ve been... quite touchy of late, haven’t you?”

Akira didn’t say anything for a few moments, Goro’s heart rate ratcheting up higher and higher with every passing second, until he finally replied, sounding a little nervous. “If I’ve been making you uncomfortable, I can stop.”

“No!” Goro squeaked on impulse, then flushed what felt like a deep red at how stupidly transparent this whole topic was making him. He had worked for so long to be so much cooler than this! What was it about this stupid kid and his stupid touchy-feelyness that made Goro turn into a sputtering, absurd mess??? “I-it’s simply that I’m... unaccustomed to it. As the Detective Prince, most of my fans or the adults who support me treat me with a respectful distance, shall we say. Being so physical with somebody... it’s not unpleasant. Just unusual.”

There were a few moments of silence, though it wasn’s as nerve-wracking as before. Goro could sort of imagine Akira nodding understandingly in the shower stall, just as he did when Goro talked about the absurdities of his day-to-day life over coffee. After a bit, Akira spoke up. “I wasn’t always so, uh, touchy, like you said. Before I got to Tokyo, I think I could count the number of hugs I’d ever had on one hand...” 

He sounded pretty glum at that, and Goro would feel sorry for him, if he weren’t able to relate to that as hard as he did. Hell, he could count the number of times he’d been hugged since his mother died on one hand, and more than half of those had been from Akira himself in the past couple weeks. 

Akira was still talking, though. “But then I came here, and met my friends... Ryuji is super physical, pretty much all the time, and Ann is too. I guess meeting them sorta... awakened something in me.”

He laughed a little, self-deprecatingly, but Goro wasn’t able to analyze that much over the sudden, powerful coil of hot jealousy in his gut. Before he could stop himself, he replied, half-gritted out. “...I suppose you’re just like this with everybody, then?”

Goro could almost hit himself at how transparent he was being, at how incapable he was to not respond on instinct and feeling around this boy who brought out so much feeling and wore him down to his basest instincts so often. He should be grilling the jackass over his galling boldness, and yet here he was, unabashedly growling at the idea of Kurusu getting soft and tender with other people. What the hell was this guy doing to him???

Akira’s voice jolted him out of his negative spiral, as it had a tendency to. “...it isn’t the same with everyone, I guess. I wouldn’t jump Makoto Nijima with a big bear hug, for example,” Goro could tell he was smiling as he said it, and despite the flash of jealousy still fading, he couldn’t help but smirk a little at the mental image. 

The smile in Akira’s voice only sharpened as he went on, though. “But on the other hand, when Futaba gets all huffy like the little nerd she is, I’d probably ruffle her hair the same way I’d ruffle yours when you get like that.”

Goro shot a glare at the divider separating their stalls. “I’m not certain that description would be wholly accurate when applied to me, Kurusu-kun,” he replied, half-deadpan, half-growl. 

Akira had the gall to laugh at that, soft and gentle and light, and Goro couldn’t even feel upset about being laughed at when the culprit sounded that cute, damn him. “I’ll take your word for it, then.”

He kept chuckling for a bit, the gentle sound soothing Goro’s nerves whether he liked it or not. He should have remembered, though, how much like a roller coaster all of his recent interactions with Kurusu had been, as the boy’s next words shot his nerves right back on the highest of high alerts.

“All that said... if I’m reading between the lines right,” _Uh oh, oh no,_ “if it would make you happy to get some, uh,” _Oh god, he can’t be- say something, Goro, goddamnit,_ “I guess ‘special treatment,’ when it comes to the touchyness and everything-”

“Y-you’re terribly mistaken, Akira, I’m-” Goro tried desperately to cut the other boy off, his voice shaky, forgetting to call him by his last name, making even more of a mess of things, but it didn’t matter, because Akira kept talking anyways-

“-then I’d be happy to stop holding back.” He finished, purposefully making his words ringing with significance, with heavy implication.

It gave Goro pause. His mind spun with a hundred different thoughts, different questions. overwhelming and fascinating and incredibly, nervously exciting all at once.

He must have paused a bit too long, though, as Akira started talking again, startling Goro out of his thoughts. “I, uh... sorry, that was, uh, probably a bit much for you... you can pretend like I didn’t say that, I-”

It didn’t sound like Akira meant to say it- in fact, he sounded so nervous, so embarrassed that he was probably tripping all over his words, saying them in odd orders he didn’t intend. Still, whatever the reason, the way Akira phrased what he said came off as a _challenge_ , as an implication that Akira’s honesty was _too much for Goro,_ and if there was one thing that Goro had learned about himself since stepping into the social spotlight, and re-learned again over the months since he met Akira, it was that Goro Akechi would never, could never, was utterly incapable of ignoring a challenge.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he interrupted Akira’s worryings, half laughing, half barking. “Whatever difference there may be between now and when you aren’t ‘holding yourself back,’ as you say, I very much doubt it will phase me in the least.” His mask was slipping again, though in a different way, his words a little sharper, a little nastier, a little more (admittedly) immature than he usually was. This time, though, the fire of competition, of _proving himself_ that was burning inside of him kept Goro from feeling too embarrassed about it.

Akira was silent for a few moments, then laughed again, still soft, but the sort of laugh a person made when they were shaking their head back and forth in bemusement. It only riled Goro up all the more. “Okay, then.” He said, voice amused and bemused and all the kinds of -mused a person could be. “If you’re sure.”

“Don’t patronize me, Kurusu,” Goro snipped back, his voice all haughty and arrogant. “I can take whatever in the world you can throw at me, without so much as blinking.”

His laugh was louder now, brighter. “Sounds good,” he chuckled, and Goro found himself smiling too, a dagger-sharp, serrated expression that he usually reserved for when he drove himself berserk while he was out on a hit. It was the smile that came most naturally to him, the one he had to train himself out of making as a kid, when the supervisors at the orphanages he lived at scolded him over and over for scaring the other children. 

It felt really, really good to make it again now. Freeing, in the strangest way.

Conversation between the two boys faded for a bit, though it took several minutes for Goro’s twisted grin to cool down into a more low-key, generally contented sort of look as he focused on washing himself, strangely soothed by the sounds of Akira doing the same in the next stall.

The embers of competition were still glowing red inside of him though, so he wasn’t caught quite so flat-footed when Akira suddenly spoke up and asked “Hey, when you’re done, you wanna join me in the bath?”

Goro felt himself blush, but he was more prepared, more steeled, ready to take whatever Akira had been holding back. A shared bath in the public tub? Hah, if that was the best the black-haired Thief could manage, this was going to be a cakewalk. “Of course,” he replied, unfazed and cheery. “Let me wash myself off, then I’ll meet you there.”

It was the work of a minute or two to get the rest of the soap suds off of his body and out of his hair, then Goro wrapped a towel around his waist and pushed back his stall’s curtain. It wasn’t far to the public bath part of Yongen-Jaya’s Public Bathhouse, and unsurprisingly for the sleepy little alley neighborhood, it was completely empty, save for Akira himself, seated just a few feet away from the taps.

Goro padded around the edge of the tub until he reached where Akira was, and after returning the soft smile the boy gave him and making sure Akira was respectfully looking away, he removed his towel and settled down a couple feet to the thief’s side.

He couldn’t help the sigh of contentment that escaped him as he sank into the perfectly warm water, nerves soothed and body warming up to the best kind of cozily warm temperature. His eyes fluttered closed as he became more and more relaxed, and despite Akira being so close, and naked too below the surface of the water, or perhaps more specifically _in spite_ of all that, Goro let himself relax even further, more de-tensed than he usually ever allowed himself to be, even in the privacy of his own apartment.

It was a foolish move. A cocky one. But Goro was nothing if not the type who had to learn a lesson a dozen times over before it really stuck, and some interminable amount of time after his mind started drifting peacefully, he was forced to learn once again not to underestimate Akira Kurusu.

Goro must have been too at peace, too relaxed to notice the shifting in the water as Akria scooted closer, but he absolutely _did_ notice when a warm, soft arm slid around his waist under the surface of the water, a hand settling on the outside of his thigh.

He jerked out of his dazed state, only stopped from physically jerking away from the sudden touch by the just as sudden, warm pressure of Akira’s body leaning against his, the motherfucker resting his side against Goro’s arm.

It took one fucking _hell_ of a lot of effort for Goro to not shoot a death glare at Akira for being so bold- but he managed to stop himself, knowing that revealing how deeply flustered he was would be admitting total defeat, barely a few minutes into this new game. Instead, he glanced at Akira out of the corner of his eye, turning his head only just slightly. Akira noticed the movement, and turned to give him a big, almost sleepy smile in return.

Goro felt a single, hard heart beat, Akira’s unguarded cuteness hitting him more powerfully than any soft-eyed, yipping puppy ever could. Emboldened, and driven by his insatiable need to one-up Akira every time the opportunity presented itself, Goro lifted the arm Akira had been leaning against out of the water, and, only pausing for a split-second to calm a sudden rush of nerves, rested it around Akira’s shoulders.

He glanced out of the corner of his eye again, and found Akira giving him the brightest, most surprised and delighted smile he had ever seen, in or out of fiction. Goro had to look away, then, unable to fight back a blush stronger than what he had felt in the shower stall. 

_...a point for each side, at best-_

But Akira quickly upset the point total yet again as he scooted and snuggled even closer to Goro, pressing his bare side against Goro’s own, his leg against Goro’s leg. Goro had to work his mind at quadruple its normal speed to keep himself calm, to avoid tensing up in surprise and shock, and was focusing on that so hard for the following minute or so that he didn’t notice that Akira had went and rested his head on Goro’s shoulder, too. He turned his head, just slightly, feeling the wet tips of his hair brush against Akira’s curls, and saw the thief’s eyes closed, his soft, delicate, model’s face totally at peace, lips slightly parted as the boy fell asleep.

The point counter in Goro’s head rocketed up Akira’s score so high it ran out of numbers to show it.

Mother _fucker._

It was a damn good thing that the water in the tub was so comfortably warm, because Goro sure as hell couldn’t move now, could barely shift his weight in fear of waking Akira up- and that thought gave Goro pause, because why exactly was he so fucking _scared_ of waking this presumptuous asshole up? 

Well, okay, that was unfair, Goro _had_ told Akira that he could basically do whatever he wanted to do in terms of touchy-feely crap, and this definitely fell in that department. Still, that didn’t mean that Goro couldn’t just shove him off when Akira did get too handsy. 

But when Goro looked at Akira’s face, how peaceful and delicate and beautiful he looked- and oh god he really did look beautiful up close, hair swept back, no glasses, no carefully controlled expression, no mask of any kind to shield him from the world, or in this case, from just Goro... when Goro looked at that face, he felt for the first time in a long time that he had something incredibly precious, and incredibly delicate in his hands, and the single most overpowering thought and feeling in his head was a desperate desire to not lose his grip on it.

So he sat there, Akira pressed up against him, drooling just a little as he slept on Goro’s shoulder. Eventually, unable to do much of anything else, Goro let his eyes slip closed too, let himself bask in the warmth of the bath mixing with the hot, perfect _rightness_ of every point of contact he had with Akira’s bare skin. It was more than he had ever felt, more right than he had ever felt, but also just _more_ than he had ever felt before, in every way one could feel, and it soothed him to the point where he dozed off a bit too.

When consciousness returned to Goro, he found himself resting his cheek against Akira’s slowly-drying mop of curls. There was a burst of embarrassment at that realization, but maybe from how close they still were, it was incredibly dulled from what he had been feeling earlier. Goro blinked slowly as he lifted his cheek up, looking around the bathhouse for some kind of clock, or any light from outside that might betray how long he had been asleep, but found nothing- and perhaps that was the most telling sign of how late it had gotten, he found _nothing_ , no other people, no sign of the bathhouse’s staff, just the gentle sound of sloshing water and the faint hiss of an old radio out front.

Only mildly panicking, to his credit, Goro shook Akira’s shoulders gently, then when he didn’t rouse, a little more firmly. “Akira. _Akira._ ”

“Hmnghm?” Akira replied smartly, eyes fluttering open. It was fascinating, watching him wake up, for a couple of reasons. One, obviously, the jerk was unfairly pretty up close, and watching him in this state, totally unguarded, felt incredibly special to Goro ( _And,_ a voice whispered in the back of his head, _incredibly addictive..._ ). Two, the Sadist part of Goro got one hell of a show as the cocky bastard’s senses returned to him in such an obvious and blatant way, Akira looking confused as his eyes darted around, at the silence around them, then the rush of red to his face as he felt what exactly he had been snuggled up so close against, and he sat straight up like a bullet out of a gun, flustered as all hell. Goro almost laughed out loud at the reversal there, but the information that gave him tempered his amusement- Akira was clearly no natural casanova, he wasn’t some unironically-titled smooth criminal by heart, but by a lot of effort and work to appear that way. 

More than that, while Akira’s current blushing and embarrassment told Goro that the black-haired boy clearly worked just as hard as Goro did at maintaining his mask, it also told him that Akira was working his ass off in another department that Goro had very little experience in whatsoever: being honest with his feelings and desires. Like Akira said before, he wasn’t holding anything back, but Goro hadn’t realized how much the boy must be pushing himself through his own embarrassment and anxieties in order to do that. 

It was admirable, in a way. Enviable, definitely. Endearing, sure.

Did this newfound knowledge bring a burst of warmth to Goro’s heart, knowing that someone was working so hard just so they could properly express a bunch of honest, sweet, snuggly feelings towards Goro? 

Well.....

“...come on,” Goro broke the silence between them, Akira jerking physically out of whatever train of thought he had been following. “I think the staff has left for the night- which is absurd, considering this is a public bath that still has customers, but I suppose it isn’t that surprising, what with the general state of Yongen-Jaya as a whole.”

Akira snorted. “Yeah, the neighborhood is... kind of a mess. It’s a nice mess, though.”

Akira raised up out of the water, grabbing his nearby towel as he did so and quickly wrapping it around his waist. Somehow, after all the physical intimacy they had just shared, Goro couldn’t bring himself to look away this time. “...a nice mess indeed.”

He trailed his eyes up Akira’s chest, and caught a cocky smirk from the thief when he got there. Goro glared, murmured an impulsive “Oh, fuck off,” and as Akira walked towards the locker rooms, cackling, Goro got out of the bath too. He found himself smiling, though he wasn’t sure why he couldn’t wipe the embarrassing expression off his face. 

After a bit, they dried themselves off and got changed back into their clothes from before, Goro grimacing at the feeling of the day’s sweat still sunken into the cloth. Already having finished getting dressed, Akira was waiting by the locker room door, yawning, one hand covering his mouth, and he gave a sleepy little wave to Goro as he approached. More aware than before, definitely, but still obviously drained, despite the nap.

Akira yawned yet again as they walked out, louder and requiring more of a stretch, apparently, as he reached his arms up and out to either side- with one of them landing around Goro’s shoulders as Akira finished the yawn. Dumbstruck, Goro frankly couldn’t tell whether the move was as cheesily intentional as it seemed, or was just Akira being sleepy and instinctively wanting to be physical again, but then again he couldn’t think much about it at all over the rush of blood in his ears and the warm pleasantness flooding his body from the contact. 

“‘s late,” Akira mumbled, and Goro blinked, looked up at the sky as they walked out from the mini-alleyway the bathhouse resided in. It _was_ pretty late, the sky already tinted dark blue, or as dark as the Tokyo sky could get at night. 

Goro pulled out his phone, and made a face at the time. “Ugh. I’m going to have to run to the station if I’m to make my train home... or find one of those bicycle rental stands...”

“Sleep with me,” the thief suggested sleepily, and Goro felt his face rocket up in temperature several dozen degrees.”’s not as uncomfortable as it looks, up there. And you shouldn’t have to push yourself to run around and shit just to get home, jeeze-”

“It’s not that I’m pushing myself!!!” Goro burst out, managing to keep his volume at a respectable level for the middle of a residential district, but unable to hold out the edge of panic in his voice. Things were moving so fast, too fast for him to keep up- “It’s just.... I know I said that you shouldn’t hold back and that I can take whatever it is you dish out and all that, and I can, I’m not weak or anything, I just... don’t know if I’m ready to-”

“Huh? Oh, uh,” Akira seemed surprised, but was still too out of it to express it with more than a lift of his eyebrows. Goro had stopped walking when he started speaking, though he hadn’t noticed it, and Akira moved to stand in front of him. He gave Goro a reassuring smile, but his move had a probably unintended side-effect; Akira seemed to forget that he had wrapped an arm around Goro’s shoulders, and by moving as he did, it trailed almost sensually across Goro’s back, until Akira’s palm was resting gently on Goro’s left shoulder blade, delicate, tender, soft.

This jumbled Goro’s thoughts and feelings exponentially higher, as Akira then started to _pat pat pat pat_ Goro’s right shoulder with an almost cartoonish amount of force, like a children’s anime reenactment of the sort of sportsy bro shit Sakamoto loved so dearly. It didn’t hurt or anything, it was just very forceful and very emphatic and the contrast between the two types of touch and the intimate level of closeness Akira was still keeping with him, and everything else from the past few hours and the past few weeks was compounding and concentrating and shooting Goro’s temperature and the brightness of his blush up several thousand levels at once and was Akira really suggesting that they **_sleep together,_** Goro said for him to not hold back anymore but jesus fucking christ this was so much so fast, Goro w-

“Goro?"

A soft hand landed gently on Goro’s cheek, and he opened his eyes- only then realizing that he had screwed them shut in his burst of panic. He felt a wave of embarrassment wash over him at how embarrassingly he must have just acted, but Akira’s hand stroked his cheek with the smallest, most tender of movements, and somehow the embarrassment washed away like the tide. Goro stared into Akira’s eyes, and the thief’s face was very close now, but somehow Goro didn’t feel as flustered by the intimate distance, though whether that was from the soothing comfort of Akira’s touches or because he had burned out the part of his brain that handled nervousness and panic, he wasn’t sure. Akira just smiled regardless, innocent and pure. “I mean what I was saying, you know?”

“Hm?” Goro blinked, cocked his head to the side, then blushed again, realizing that Akira must have been saying something while Goro was panicing. “Oh, uhm, I must not have heard you... sorry...”

“No worries,” Akira reassured him, voice warm, soft. “Basically, I didn’t mean anything sexual or anything, just that I want you to be safe n’ comfortable. Just trying to be more honest ‘n everything.” His gentle smile faltered for a moment then, and he looked away. “Though...”

“...though what?” Goro asked, whispered really, not knowing why he was whispering, maybe because they were so, so close, maybe because Akira looked so vulnerable, so open, the more troubled parts of him as well as the affectionate ones.

Akira chuckled, a small, kind of self-deprecating thing, and looked back at Goro. “I said that I’d be more honest, that I wouldn’t hold back anymore with the stuff I want to do or say, but...” His eyes met Goro’s, then slowly trailed down his face, settling on his lips. Goro blushed more, and more again when he felt Akira’s thumb lift up from his cheek and move to stroke at Goro’s bottom lip. “...there’s something I really, really wanna say right now... but it’d probably be moving way too fast too-”

“Say it,” Goro interrupted, breathless, a little desperate, unable to bear the tension that was growing between them, unable to bear the rough, unpolished edge Akira’s voice had gotten, unable to fucking take another second of all the touch Akira was giving him, Akira’s other hand having slipped down from Goro’s shoulder to his waist and the bear centimeters of distance still separating them- “Please.”

Akira’s eyes met his again, and though he blushed, he spoke from the heart. “I really, really want to kiss you right now-”

Before the last syllable left Akira’s lips, Goro surged up and silenced him with his own. The press of lips to lips was electric, overwhelming, and a little flat at the same time, Goro knowing instinctively that the way he was kissing Akira wasn’t quite the right way to kiss somebody. He breathed in through his nose, shifted his head to the side a little, and the movement was apparently enough to jerk Akira out of whatever stunned state he had been in, because he made a noise that couldn’t be described as anything but a moan and moved to kiss Goro properly too.

Their lips slotted together like two puzzle pieces finally fitting into place, and Goro reached up to wrap his arms around Akira’s neck, burying a hand in his curls. Akira moaned again as Goro inadvertently tugged at a few locks, and his mouth slipped open further as he did so, his tongue brushing against Goro’s lips, making him moan and shudder in turn. The kiss quickly evolved into something messier and more open-mouthed after that, instinct and desire and need and heat taking over any conscious rational thought for the both of them, and Goro let himself ride it out, coast on the impossibly wonderful feelings swirling around and within him.

Akira’s hand was still on Goro’s cheek, but it soon slipped down, palm coasting over Goro’s neck, his chest, resting on top of where his heart was. Goro felt his heartrate spike at the contact, felt a burst of nervousness at how incredibly, weirdly romantic it felt to have Akira’s hand right over his heart, and a simultaneous burst of desire for Akira to tear Goro’s shirt open then and there and run his hands over every inch of his skin.

Akira probably felt how fast Goro’s heart was starting to beat, though, and definitely felt the hardness in Goro’s pants- the instant Goro became aware of it, he felt the same firmness pressing up against him from Akira’s side. 

Regardless, they broke off from the kiss, both red as it was possible to be, both panting, both equally embarrassed by and eager to give into the desire coursing through them.

But, as Akira said, and quite rightly too, that really would be moving a bit too fast. After how intensely having Akira put his hand on Goro’s chest affected him, he wagered that anything approaching sex would probably give him a fucking heart attack.

Still, unwise or not, it took just a second of looking at how absolutely wrecked Akira looked to spark up that desire again. Though, there was a compromise, between giving in totally to that hunger and a responsible level of caution. “Is the, ah,” Goro had to clear his through a little after hearing how ragged his voice sounded, then tried again. “Is the offer to spend the night at your place still open?”

Akira blinked, clearly taken a little by surprise, but nodded effusively a second later. “Uh, yeah! Yes, absolutely. Though, uh...” He looked to the side, and Goro wagered that if they both weren’t blushing furiously already, Akira would have blushed even more. They really needed to get out more if they were pale enough to get this visibly affected by their emotions, jesus. “I was gonna take the couch and everything, but after that, I’d really like to snuggle with you, if that’s okay.”

Goro had to look to the side too at that, but he nodded all the same... then spoke up a few seconds later when he realized that they were both looking away from each other, and nodding was kind of pointless right now. “Yes, I’d... I was hoping we would, frankly. I’d like that a lot.”

It was harder to get that out than Goro had imagined, and he realized again how hard Akira had to have been working to be this forwards with his feelings, if it felt that nerve-wracking every time. To be fair, Goro was nothing if not the Prince of Emotional Constipation, so he couldn’t really apply his own struggles to everybody else, but still.

When he looked back at Akria, Goro was met with a blindingly bright smile. Akira nodded a whole bunch, said “Great! That’s... that’s really-” he coughed, nerves getting the better of him, clearly still off-balance from his self-assured forthrightness earlier, now that they’d kissed. “Really great.”

Goro smiled back, and moved his arms back from where they were still wrapped around Akira’s neck. Akira pouted a little at that, but perked right back up again when Goro took his hand and laced their fingers together instead. “Lead the way, then.”

Akira did, and Goro had the most comfortable, peaceful night of his entire life.

\---

“Are you sure you don’t want breakfast?”

“No, really Akira,” Goro shoved a little at the clingy, sleepy boy wrapped around his waist like a koala. “It’s late enough that we’re risking Sakura walking in on us as it is...” 

He looked down, intending to shoot a glare at Akira, but feeling his face soften and fall like a souflee at the innocent kitty-eyes Akira was giving him. Instead, Goro sighed, and ran his fingers through Akira’s hair, the thief instinctively pressing his head up into Goro’s touch, catboy that he was. “And besides,” Goro admitted, embarrassed to say it, but not as much after a night of cuddling. “If I stay here any longer, I’m not going to want to leave.”

“Is that such a bad thing?” Akira grumbled, his arms still wrapped around Goro’s waist, but other than that, mostly pacified from the hair scritches. Goro would have to remember that.

“Yes, it is. We both have school, and if you skip yours, we’ll have to worry about a visiting parole officer interrupting our snug- er, our time together rather than Sakura-san.” Goro blushed, still having trouble with the more cutesy words. Yeah, he was getting better at not being so embarrassed about things, but these things didn’t go away overnight.

Akira just grumbled wordlessly at that, and Goro sighed, and started prying him off physically. The thief had been like this all morning- it had taken at least ten minutes to get the idiot to let Goro go long enough to use the goddamn bathroom and get out of his borrowed pyjamas and back into his now day-old clothes- and as soon as he opened the door again, Akira had gone right back to where he had started. Goro was starting to understand that Akira might be just as desperate and needy for physical contact as Goro himself seemed to be.

After a minute or so more of prying, Akira sighed theatrically and finally gave up, releasing Goro completely. He looked pathetically dejected, and Goro sighed, reached down to grab Akira’s hand, holding it as he moved them both towards Leblanc’s front door- and it was pretty amusing how quick Akira brightened up at the hand holding.

Goro felt a burst of affection for this deeply silly, strange, soft, affectionate, cool, confusing man, and moved to kiss the top of his head. “Thank you for... well, for everything yesterday. I had a lovely time.”

Akira got red in the face, looked away a little, and Goro couldn’t help but chuckle. After suffering so much flustered frustration at the man’s hands, it was deeply satisfying to have a bit of revenge like that. 

That said, Goro really, truly needed to stop assuming Akira was down for the count with this shit, because a moment later he looked back up at Goro, eyes soft and determined, and said with an only somewhat faltering voice, “I-if you want, we could have nights like that every night.”

“E-every night?” Goro repeated, mind blanking at the thought of having something so precious and overwhelmingly nice so often. 

Akira nodded resolutely, and a little childishly with how emphatic he was about it. “Yeah. It’d make me... really happy to be able to relax and cuddle every night with my boyfriend like that.”

Goro had to drop his attache case and cover his face at that, this piece of shit was _too much!!!!!!_ “I, uhm...” Goro internally flinched hard at how high his voice sounded, and he coughed a couple times, clearing his throat, before he took his hands away from his face and tried again, ignoring the amused little smile playing on Akira’s lips, the fucker. “Every night might be a bit... more than I can handle at the moment, mortifying as that is to admit...” He looked to the side, but Akira squeezed his hand soothingly, and though it surprised Goro, he got over the flash of shame in just a few seconds. “...but doing this a few times every week might be... very nice.”

Akira’s smile stretched into that beaming grin of his again, and he nodded a bunch. “Great!”

Goro couldn’t help but smile too, and he squeezed Akira’s hand back. “Yes... now-”

Before he could say anything else, Akire moved quick as lightening and kissed him- not too long of a kiss, but not too quick either, just slow and tender enough to qualify as _lingering._

Goro fluttered his eyes open once Akira moved back, not realizing he had closed them in the first place, and went red all over again at how purely _happy_ his b... his boyfriend looked. That was really going to take some getting used to, thinking of Akira as his _boyfriend_ , but... well, it was a nice thing to think all the same.

“Have a great day, honey!” Akira chimed, and Goro shook his head at the earnestness Akira said the cliche with.

Still, dutifully, he replied “You too, dear,” and got to see a blushing Akira as his reward. Then, just to secure his win further, Goro brought Akira’s hand to his lips and kissed his fingers.

Akira went beet red, and Goro laughed, and let go of his hand, and headed out for the day, feeling better than he had in... well, in as long as he could remember.

Maybe he really was on the right path.

\---

That night, despite what he had said earlier, Goro found himself standing outside Leblanc. He was standing off to the side, out of sight of the window embedded in the cafe’s door, debating whether it would be too pathetic to come back so soon. He really did need it, though; despite the wonderful morning, his day had gone terribly, annoying teachers, asshole co-workers, a dozen too many fangirls asking for his-

Goro’s phone rang in his pocket, and bitterly he guessed in an instant who it was on the other end. He pulled it out of his pocket, and yes, there was one of Shido’s burner phone numbers flashing on his screen. The worst way to cap off the day. Still, dutifully and depressed, Goro moved his thumb to tap the answer button-

“Hey there hot stuff,” a voice called from nearby, and Goro looked up from his phone to see Akira standing in Leblanc’s entryway, leaning against the doorframe. Next to him, Sojiro Sakura was giving the dark-haired thief a look and shaking his head as he headed home for the night- though not before he waved in greeting to Goro.

Goro looked at Akira, then back to his phone. He looked towards Akira again...

...his thumb tapped the red button instead, declining the call, and Goro shut off his phone as he walked over to join Akira. “Hey yourself, idiot,” he snarked, unable to stop himself from smiling despite the quip.

Akira’s laugh reverberated through Goro’s body, and his arms settled around his waist, and for the first time in two years, the weight of the smartphone in Goro’s pocket didn’t feel like a chain, tying him to the doomed ship he had thrown his lot in with. Instead, its dead, silenced bulk felt like a totem, marking the beginning of a new stage of his life. A reminder, of what he was leaving behind, just as the warmth and softness and rightness of Akira’s lips caressing his own was a reminder of his future, and every wonderful moment it would hold.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from [ "Inside Outerspace"](https://brendanmaclean.bandcamp.com/track/inside-outerspace) by Brendan Maclean and Paul Mac. It's a really good song, take a listen!
> 
> I have no idea if this is..... good?????? I wrote the bulk of it after playing out the bathhouse scene and the kiss outside in my head, and then just sorta tacked on a beginning and ending this week, and I have no idea if it all works together. I think it does, I liked it when I was editing it, but I'm really just ?????? when it comes to this one. I hope you like it!!! From what I've seen since I started posting P5 fic regularly, it's usually the ones I'm the most ???? about that seems to resonate with folks, so I guess we'll see!
> 
> P5R comes out in less than a week from this fic's posting date for the west (except its already out in Australia but hell they deserve some good surprises after everything that's happened recently, so we'll forgive it) and I'm personally hype as hell! The marketing for it has been kinda a flop, but every clip and screenshot and impression I've heard about the actual game itself look really awesome, so I'm cautiously super fucking excited! I hope this bit of fluff and snuggles helps prep you for the fun to come and/or helps you get through whatever new shuake angst they may have added to this version. 
> 
> Hoo boy!!!
> 
> Next Thursday, on 4/2, I'll be posting the next chapter of my Childhood Friends AU Longfic, [ Like The Moon, We Borrow Our Light, ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21227510) and after that, I'm probably gonna take a break on the weekly uploads for a bit. I'll still keep updating Like The Moon every other week, but frankly, I'm kinda out of one-shot drafts to polish up and publish, and I'm gonna be playing a lot of P5R once it comes out, so I'd rather drop the one-shots for a bit and dedicate my writing time to the longfic. That said, the last time I tried to do that, I wrote like, 3 one shots in a week and got really anxious about not posting them, and broke my hiatus a week later, so we'll see how this all plays out.
> 
> If you wanna get more regular updates about my writing, or just see me losing my goddamn mind about the cute nerd catboy Raymond in AC:NH (and then next week, see me losing my goddamn mind about P5R), my twitter is [ @SevventhSteen! ](https://twitter.com/SevventhSteen)
> 
> Take care of each other out there, friends, and make sure you tell everyone you love that you love them a lot! Enjoy AC and P5R and all the good Shuake fic that'll probably come when P5R releases and life in general! See ya soon!!!


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